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[Music]
Hey guys, today, we are here with my friend Joseph,
and we're going to do something that a lot of you have asked about.
We are going to do some introductory blacksmithing.
Now Joseph, tell us about what blacksmithing experience you have.
Well, I first got into it when I was 11 by reading books.
I found a reference in a book to an old way the blacksmith's
practice, which is to forge clay, which does not require the hot fire
or any of the dangerous stuff.
And so it's a really good way to start in your kitchen.
We'll take some refrigerated oil-based clay,
and learn some basic blacksmithing techniques.
Once we've got those techniques down, we'll use our backyard foundry
as a furnace, and apply what we've learned
to some real iron.
All right, so we are going to show you a little bit of blacksmithing
with real metal and real fire.
But then we're also going to show you Joseph's practicing method where you
use oil-based clay that you have refrigerated
and the tools are the same.
Yup, tools are exactly the same, and the techniques are exactly the same.
Cool thing about Clay is actually a really good analog
for the way hot metal behaves,
and so you can learn how to forge tapers and to do upsetting,
to punch and do all the stuff,
and it's actually less forgiving than iron,
and so it's a really good way to practice and see where you're making mistakes.
Brilliant.
So, all right, talk about the tools.
Okay, so hammers have a couple of different faces.
Typically you'll have a face of the hammer which is flat,
and then you have a back-end which does something else.
This will flatten metal in all directions, and so, as you squish the metal,
it's going to squish this way, and this way.
The most common type of blacksmithing hammer
is called a cross peen hammer, and this thing is insanely useful,
because this back end, when you hit metal with it, is only
going to spread metal in this axis,
and a lot less in this axis, which is really good
for stretching out metal in areas where you want it.
You also have straight peens, which have the same kind
of chisel shape just done vertically.
This is a crossbeam. I found one.
Yeah.
This one is a ball-peen.
You've probably seen this type before, and this one is useful for dishing
and making spoons, and it's more of an aggressive spread of metal
at one kind of point.
And this is an anvil.
What is this made of?
This is a Harbor Freight junk Anvil.
Do you know is this iron or steel
or? This is cast iron.
How much does this anvil weight?
This anvil 55 pounds.
I'm so strong.
55 pounds.
Oh wow.
So we have our 55-pound cast iron anvil,
a variety of hammers.
Maybe let's try a little bit of room temperature clay,
and then we'll move to the refrigerated clay,
which is more like the actual metal.
And then we'll eventually move up to the actual metal.
Oil-based clay, and so,
this is just the stuff that you can get at like a craft store, right?
Yes.
This is the stuff that kids can play with.
Bright colored stuff.
And this is, when you would say oil-based,
you mean that this is a thick probably about the consistency
of petroleum jelly type of oil with a substrate in it,
and this doesn't dry out because this has no water
in it to dry out.
You could leave this out for a year, and it would get dusty,
but it would still be pretty much the same.
Step one.
Take a hammer, try squishing it just
to get a sense for how that goes.
You want the most power you can get with perfect control.
So here I have tons of control, but not much power.
Here, I've got loads of power but like my aim is going to be way off.
Yeah, because this is room temperature clay,
we need like no -- no power.
So err on the side of control.
You're seeing the divots that your hammer is making?
Yes.
You want to be aware of those.
Any tilting of your hammer like this or like this
or like this is going to make dents.
So when I-- When I keep the hammer relatively flat here,
I get only very very minor denting along the edges.
But if-- but if I angle my hand wrong and then hit in the middle, I suddenly have
this big old crescent-shaped, and I assume in metal,
that's kind of hard to get out.
Yes, very much!
Clay is slightly, it's less forgiving than metal.
But you're going to get the same effect with metal,
and so this is a good way to make sure--
I can see them.
I'm flattening down on top of it, and like it's still visible that crease
I put in there earlier.
Lift up the clay from the anvil.
It's going to try to stick to the anvil, so you're going to want to lift it
every couple of hits.
Just to make sure it doesn't stick.
So regularly.
Yes.
Remove it from the anvil.
That does not happen with real metal.
Okay.
Now try slipping at 90 degrees, and stretching this out.
Yeah, you'll notice that now that this is kind of spatula shape
because you were spreading the clay in this direction.
In this direction, this direction,
not so much into the bar though.
Exactly.
And so now try getting this the same--
I'm gonna rotate it, and we're going to try
and make equal thickness to this again?
Yes. >> All right.
And now you'll notice it's puckering.
So flip it again 90 degrees, and fix the pucker.
Now, I've got like this chisel shape.
Yeah.
So do I want to flip it back to the first spot side
or on to the other side?
If you flip it on the other side, you'd want to bring it to the edge
of the anvil right here, so that you can maintain
that place where it changes thickness.
[Music]
Yeah.
All right.
I've still got kind of this channel going down
the middle, is that...
Yeah, that's pretty normal for starting.
See if you could smooth it out as best you can.
With refrigerated clay or with hot metal,
I would have to be hitting this a lot harder.
Yes, but you also need less of this.
You get a trade-off, and that it's harder
to make big mistakes when it's harder.
This is similar to working at a low red heat when
you're blacksmithing.
Typically, what smiths will do is they will forge the rough shape,
and then at a cooler temperature, they will take out the dents.
Interesting.
I have a slightly flatter piece of clay.
It took me several minutes with a hammer and an anvil to do it.
The next thing I'd like to show you how to do is
how to make a leaf.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this hammer
for most of what I'm doing.
All right.
And the first thing I'm going to do is what's called drawing a taper,
which means I want to make this pointy.
So I'm going to take my hammer and angle it, and I'm
going to angle my clay a little bit,
and I'm going to whack it, rotating 90 degrees every time.
So now it's pointy, and the next thing I'm going to do is
I'm going to hold it over the edge of the anvil,
and I'm going to whack right over the transition between the Anvil
and empty space,
and that's going to create that shape, that kind of step down.
You see that?
Yes.
Now I'm going to do the same thing on the other side.
I'm going to rotate that.
This is forming the transition from the leaf and the stem.
So now I've got the stem thinner.
Now, I'm going to round off the corners by pointing the corner up
to make it into an octagon.
And now just getting it as smooth and round as I can.
So now it's round.
But I'm going to set this on the anvil like this.
I'm going to make it flat, and I could finish it there,
but I'm not going to, and so what I'm going to do
is unstick it.
Now, I'm going to use the cross peen end of the hammer to rotate out the shape
of the leaf, and also put in the definition.
And there, you've got a leaf.
And then the last thing you want to do, I'm going to throw a hammer out here to
simulate having an actual step down here.
I'm going to hold it over this spot right here.
I'm going to tap it to give it a little bit of character,
and then, I'm going to tap down the tip to make it look a little more organic.
And there's the leaf.
Brilliant.
All right.
How long do you have to practice before your forearm
starts having strength, and not getting really sore very quickly?
It depends on how much rock climbing you do.
Hmm, not enough apparently.
[Music]
I leafed.
You leafed.
Frozen clay compared to regular clay.
My forearm is already sore from holding a hammer.
So this is going to get interesting.
So same process?
Same process.
Oh my gosh, that's harder.
[Music]
That's a great point.
Thank you.
Do a step down.
There we go.
So I've got a bowl of ice and water and salt.
Make this our sort of reverse forge.
Let the clay sit in there for a few seconds.
If you're doing something with this out of metal,
how long would you be throwing back in the forge for--
It depends on how thick it is.
So the super thin areas like this spot are going to change temperature faster,
so they don't have to go in the forge for very long.
If you're doing something really thick, you can wait
until you're an old man.
Like just forever.
Is that enough or should I go thin?
That's perfect.
So now you have some room to work with?
[Music]
Now, we move onto metal.
Yes.
Metal.
It was the...
Like what are we looking for?
How do we know when it's ready?
The nice thing about iron is that it changes colors to tell you what,
how hot it is.
So the scale of blacksmithing color starts at what they call a cherry red,
or a low red,
and then you work your way up through reddish orange to orange,
to reddish yellow to yellow to...
At that point, the metal actually catches on fire.
And so what color are we looking for an orange?
This is a mild steel bar that we've got right here.
And so this is workable all the way down to a really low red.
And so anything where it's glowing, we can hit it.
So about here.
This is this is how far I can grab this before it starts getting
uncomfortably warm.
It is warm.
I mean, this part's warm.
Back here, like there's quite a heat difference
between right there and right there.
So I feel pretty safe holding right here, and you do notice I have bare hands,
that helps me feel how the steel is doing what--
Once I feel it cooling off too much under my hand,
then I'll know it might be time to throw it back in.
All right, let's see about flattening this a little bit.
[Music]
Got some fun flaking here.
Yeah.
This is a magnetite.
What's happened is some of the metal has returned
to its ore state.
This is the black sand that the Japanese smiths used to make their swords,
except they find it naturally occurring.
[Music]
What do you think Joseph?
The finest leaf that blacksmithing has ever seen?
Probably the best one ever that no one has ever made a better Leaf.
I like the definition that you manage to put in here.
That's actually, considering how tired you were from all
the stuff we've been doing before, that's not bad for hammer control,
and then you managed to get all the individual steps right
all the way up to here.
So that's awesome.
And there's very very little carps from map here.
So good taper, good set down, good texturing.
Well done.
Intro to blacksmithing is actually pretty simple.
We've shown you a couple of different ways of how to make forges that you could use
for this technique.
Our classic stand up in a bucket forge,
and then our smaller paint can forge, those are both things that would work
for this process.
You just have to have a little bit of patience, plenty of fuel,
and a few tools.
Some hammers and an anvil are...
No matter which forge you decide to try with,
exercise lots and lots of caution.
Rule number one of blacksmithing, even if the metal looks black,
it is still hot enough to melt your flesh.
So like assume everything's hot.
I assume everything is trying to kill you.
Be careful with the fire and don't die.
Thank you to Joseph for teaching me the beginning steps
of blacksmithing using the freezing cold clay.
That works great as an analog, and then moving up to steel.
This steel is probably barely a step above iron,
but I made it.
Guys, thanks for watching.
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